7 ms·

TSMC are the only guys who can do 5nm, and everybody wants 5nm. It's not like you can just push a button on your AWS console and get a new 5nm fab.

kube-system 6y ago
Samsung does 5nm
- monocasa 6y ago
  But at low yields. https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/samsung-reported-low-5nm-yields-2020-07/ https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/samsung-repo... Meanwhile TSMC's 5nm somehow had better yields than their 7nm at the same point in the product lifecycle. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16028/better-yield-on-5nm-than-7nm-tsmc-update-on-defect-rates-for-n5 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16028/better-yield-on-5nm-tha...
  - fomine3 6y ago
    Also their 5nm performance is not very well compared to TSMC 7nm https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exynos-2100-galaxy-s21-ultra/ https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exyno...
apocalyptic0n3 6y ago
> It's not like you can just push a button on your AWS console and get a new 5nm fab. I have to admit that I really take for granted how easily it is to spin up additional capacity for projects nowadays. This statement put that into focus for me. That said, at some point if this continues, the shortages will start to affect AWS, Azure, GCM, DO, Linode, OVH, etc. capacity. And that will get nasty fast.
- xuki 6y ago
  5 days ago the data center my dedicated servers are in caught fire, and I was able to restore everything from back up to DO in 30 minutes. I would be so screwed if there is no capacity from on demand hosting providers.
- nicbou 6y ago
  Likewise. The pandemic showed us that the supply chain is more frail than we think. I also just finished Wages of Destruction, about economics in Nazi Germany. And at last I explored the nooks and crannies of an abandoned hospital. It's eye-opening to see how complex a large building is, with all its pipes, wiring, and shafts. That's without considering the satellite buildings, or the specialised equipment on the actual production line. It's also surprising to see how much depends on components and raw materials produced thousands of kilometres away. And at last, it becomes obvious that you can't just spin up a new factory, nor can you trivially retool one or re(al)locate thousands of its workers. Scaling up demands feats of logistics. Scaling down can bring financial ruin to entire regions. This draws interesting parallels to the production of vaccine. You can't just throw more people at it for the same reasons.
detaro 6y ago
The current overall shortage in the wider ecosystem is not even limited to top-of-line 5nm parts, but the fundamental issue of "you can't just spin up a fab" remains of course.
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  > but the fundamental issue of "you can't just spin up a fab" remains of course. Why not? I mean... look at the current plague pandemic - we've been listening that you cannot just create more space in hospitals overnight, or build new rooms, and this and that... but it's not overnight... it's been a year now, and if they started building the first time they said "it cannot be done overnight", we'd have a lot of nice empty rooms now. I remember waiting for some parts in 2002, that were delayed due to many stupid logistic issues in Korea (fifa world cup was there, then), and the excuse was the same... you cannot just make more factories overnight. Graphics card prices are overinflated, ram prices are inflated, ssd prices are inflated.... basically, anyone who starts building any form of production now, will be able to sell whatever the company puts out without issues. I know I might sound like a conspiracy theorist, but there is either some cartel deal between huge companies (intel, amd, nvidia, qualcomm,...), to keep prices artificially high and blame parts shortage, or they're all incompetent.
  - not_exactly__ 6y ago
    Me think you grossly under-estimate the complexity of creating a facility that processes basic inputs, a few chemicals, and lots of optics/lights to make state of the art nanometer scale 3D features at enormous volume and very low defect rates.
    - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
      World cup in korea was in 2002... between then and now, many generations (sizes) of semicondctors have been 'invented' (..the method to produce them) and replaced with smaller ones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_device_fabrication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_device_fabricati... There is a table on the right, and there are rougly 2-3 years between 'generations' - so 2-3 years between starting a new production line of top-of-the-line flagship (eg.) cpus, to making a new production line for even newer, "smaller" (transitors) cpus, and the old line making other, cheaper ones. I'm not saying that Johnny Sixpack can do it in his garage, but companies like Intel, AMD, samsung, etc. surely could do it in that timeframe, because they're already doing it now.
Daho0n 6y ago
Much of what is needed doesn't have to be 5nm though. IMO the fastest way to get more production capacity is blocked because of politics. Want more capacity as fast as possible (though that is still not exactly fast) on 5nm? Let China upgrade to better fabs and do the high nm work. But China is the evil enemy surpassing us in our own game so they gotta be held outside.
- mlindner 6y ago
  This has nothing to do with China. China is actually behind, Taiwan, South Korea, and the US in fab technology. China's best fabs are in 28nm area, not 5nm. This is why them getting cut off from western tech via the US's semiconductor sanctions was such a huge deal. They don't have their own fabs capable of making high end products.
  - randomopining 6y ago
    They're seriously at only 28nm? How does Huawei get those new chips at 7nm?
    - unmole 6y ago
      The same way everyone else does, from TSMC.
    - defaultname 6y ago
      No, they aren't at 28nm. They're shipping 14nm at volume, have low-volume R&D yields of 7nm, and are building their own EUV process for 5nm and below. Sanctioning and restricting China is most certainly going to be a catalyst for a rapid development of domestic advancements (including, of course, surreptitiously stealing it from other countries/companies). Anyone who thinks China won't be right with the top makers in a few short years is fooling themselves.
      - randomopining 6y ago
        So they’re basically at Intel level?
BostonEnginerd 6y ago
The chips on short order are mostly quite old but specialized processes - most are 90nm and up in size. The advanced nodes aren’t very useful for moving power around.
kingosticks 6y ago
Does everyone want 5nm? Would another fab tomorrow be useful? Who's actually shipping 5nm at volume except Apple right now? Are Huawei or were they forced elsewhere? Broadcom 5nm is barely going yet, neither AMD or Nvidia are shipping anything. I think that leaves just 5G stuff from Mediatek and Qualcomm. 7nm is what most of TSMC's customers want to get out the door.
- mr_toad 6y ago
  Want or need? I have a dozen devices on my LAN that don’t use the latest tech. I get by. But if I was going to upgrade my laptop there’s a good chance it would be an M1.
  - kingosticks 6y ago
    Demand for Apple's M1 laptop isn't going to be a problem for TSMC if Apple is currently their only customer with volume production of 5nm parts. I'm trying to understand where the idea of any 5nm shortage comes from. The shortages described in this article are nothing to do with 5nm.
eric_b 6y ago
Those ASML EUV machines are like 100-200 million dollars apiece. I can't imagine what the lead time on something like that is. And of course you need people to run them, a space to run them in, and everything else. There can't be too many industries with bigger capital outlays than cutting-edge semi fab.
- brudgers 6y ago
  That's the price of a moderately sized public high school in the US...without considering the land. For example Pinole Valley High School https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/04/14/west-contra-costa-school-board-oks-30-million-more-for-pinole-valley-high-construction/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/04/14/west-contra-costa-sc... Google says Contra Costa County has nine high schools.
  - eric_b 6y ago
    I don't understand your comment. Are you refuting that semiconductor fabrication is capital intensive? Are you comparing it somehow to building high schools? Like... what? The new fab TSMC is building in Arizona is 12 BILLION DOLLARS - for a single fab. That's 100 of these high schools for the price of a single fab facility.
cheeze 6y ago
I'm sure AWS is working on it though. Half joking
brigade 6y ago
"5nm" is too simplistic; the material shortage continues upstream to substrates and raw wafers that are used across nodes
defaultname 6y ago
Most of the shortages are in older process chips. Having said that, it is pretty remarkable that Apple has gotten themselves in a situation where a supplier has so much leverage over them. TSMC can set the prices and conditions and there isn't a lot anyone can do about it.

kube-system 6y ago

Samsung does 5nm

monocasa 6y ago
But at low yields. https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/samsung-reported-low-5nm-yields-2020-07/ https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/samsung-repo... Meanwhile TSMC's 5nm somehow had better yields than their 7nm at the same point in the product lifecycle. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16028/better-yield-on-5nm-than-7nm-tsmc-update-on-defect-rates-for-n5 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16028/better-yield-on-5nm-tha...
- fomine3 6y ago
  Also their 5nm performance is not very well compared to TSMC 7nm https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exynos-2100-galaxy-s21-ultra/ https://www.anandtech.com/show/16463/snapdragon-888-vs-exyno...

apocalyptic0n3 6y ago

> It's not like you can just push a button on your AWS console and get a new 5nm fab. I have to admit that I really take for granted how easily it is to spin up additional capacity for projects nowadays. This statement put that into focus for me. That said, at some point if this continues, the shortages will start to affect AWS, Azure, GCM, DO, Linode, OVH, etc. capacity. And that will get nasty fast.

xuki 6y ago
5 days ago the data center my dedicated servers are in caught fire, and I was able to restore everything from back up to DO in 30 minutes. I would be so screwed if there is no capacity from on demand hosting providers.
nicbou 6y ago
Likewise. The pandemic showed us that the supply chain is more frail than we think. I also just finished Wages of Destruction, about economics in Nazi Germany. And at last I explored the nooks and crannies of an abandoned hospital. It's eye-opening to see how complex a large building is, with all its pipes, wiring, and shafts. That's without considering the satellite buildings, or the specialised equipment on the actual production line. It's also surprising to see how much depends on components and raw materials produced thousands of kilometres away. And at last, it becomes obvious that you can't just spin up a new factory, nor can you trivially retool one or re(al)locate thousands of its workers. Scaling up demands feats of logistics. Scaling down can bring financial ruin to entire regions. This draws interesting parallels to the production of vaccine. You can't just throw more people at it for the same reasons.

detaro 6y ago

The current overall shortage in the wider ecosystem is not even limited to top-of-line 5nm parts, but the fundamental issue of "you can't just spin up a fab" remains of course.

ajsnigrutin 6y ago
> but the fundamental issue of "you can't just spin up a fab" remains of course. Why not? I mean... look at the current plague pandemic - we've been listening that you cannot just create more space in hospitals overnight, or build new rooms, and this and that... but it's not overnight... it's been a year now, and if they started building the first time they said "it cannot be done overnight", we'd have a lot of nice empty rooms now. I remember waiting for some parts in 2002, that were delayed due to many stupid logistic issues in Korea (fifa world cup was there, then), and the excuse was the same... you cannot just make more factories overnight. Graphics card prices are overinflated, ram prices are inflated, ssd prices are inflated.... basically, anyone who starts building any form of production now, will be able to sell whatever the company puts out without issues. I know I might sound like a conspiracy theorist, but there is either some cartel deal between huge companies (intel, amd, nvidia, qualcomm,...), to keep prices artificially high and blame parts shortage, or they're all incompetent.
- not_exactly__ 6y ago
  Me think you grossly under-estimate the complexity of creating a facility that processes basic inputs, a few chemicals, and lots of optics/lights to make state of the art nanometer scale 3D features at enormous volume and very low defect rates.
  - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    World cup in korea was in 2002... between then and now, many generations (sizes) of semicondctors have been 'invented' (..the method to produce them) and replaced with smaller ones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_device_fabrication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_device_fabricati... There is a table on the right, and there are rougly 2-3 years between 'generations' - so 2-3 years between starting a new production line of top-of-the-line flagship (eg.) cpus, to making a new production line for even newer, "smaller" (transitors) cpus, and the old line making other, cheaper ones. I'm not saying that Johnny Sixpack can do it in his garage, but companies like Intel, AMD, samsung, etc. surely could do it in that timeframe, because they're already doing it now.

Daho0n 6y ago

Much of what is needed doesn't have to be 5nm though. IMO the fastest way to get more production capacity is blocked because of politics. Want more capacity as fast as possible (though that is still not exactly fast) on 5nm? Let China upgrade to better fabs and do the high nm work. But China is the evil enemy surpassing us in our own game so they gotta be held outside.

mlindner 6y ago
This has nothing to do with China. China is actually behind, Taiwan, South Korea, and the US in fab technology. China's best fabs are in 28nm area, not 5nm. This is why them getting cut off from western tech via the US's semiconductor sanctions was such a huge deal. They don't have their own fabs capable of making high end products.
- randomopining 6y ago
  They're seriously at only 28nm? How does Huawei get those new chips at 7nm?
  - unmole 6y ago
    The same way everyone else does, from TSMC.
  - defaultname 6y ago
    No, they aren't at 28nm. They're shipping 14nm at volume, have low-volume R&D yields of 7nm, and are building their own EUV process for 5nm and below. Sanctioning and restricting China is most certainly going to be a catalyst for a rapid development of domestic advancements (including, of course, surreptitiously stealing it from other countries/companies). Anyone who thinks China won't be right with the top makers in a few short years is fooling themselves.
    - randomopining 6y ago
      So they’re basically at Intel level?

BostonEnginerd 6y ago

The chips on short order are mostly quite old but specialized processes - most are 90nm and up in size. The advanced nodes aren’t very useful for moving power around.

kingosticks 6y ago

Does everyone want 5nm? Would another fab tomorrow be useful? Who's actually shipping 5nm at volume except Apple right now? Are Huawei or were they forced elsewhere? Broadcom 5nm is barely going yet, neither AMD or Nvidia are shipping anything. I think that leaves just 5G stuff from Mediatek and Qualcomm. 7nm is what most of TSMC's customers want to get out the door.

mr_toad 6y ago
Want or need? I have a dozen devices on my LAN that don’t use the latest tech. I get by. But if I was going to upgrade my laptop there’s a good chance it would be an M1.
- kingosticks 6y ago
  Demand for Apple's M1 laptop isn't going to be a problem for TSMC if Apple is currently their only customer with volume production of 5nm parts. I'm trying to understand where the idea of any 5nm shortage comes from. The shortages described in this article are nothing to do with 5nm.

eric_b 6y ago

Those ASML EUV machines are like 100-200 million dollars apiece. I can't imagine what the lead time on something like that is. And of course you need people to run them, a space to run them in, and everything else. There can't be too many industries with bigger capital outlays than cutting-edge semi fab.

brudgers 6y ago
That's the price of a moderately sized public high school in the US...without considering the land. For example Pinole Valley High School https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/04/14/west-contra-costa-school-board-oks-30-million-more-for-pinole-valley-high-construction/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/04/14/west-contra-costa-sc... Google says Contra Costa County has nine high schools.
- eric_b 6y ago
  I don't understand your comment. Are you refuting that semiconductor fabrication is capital intensive? Are you comparing it somehow to building high schools? Like... what? The new fab TSMC is building in Arizona is 12 BILLION DOLLARS - for a single fab. That's 100 of these high schools for the price of a single fab facility.

cheeze 6y ago

I'm sure AWS is working on it though. Half joking

brigade 6y ago

"5nm" is too simplistic; the material shortage continues upstream to substrates and raw wafers that are used across nodes

defaultname 6y ago

Most of the shortages are in older process chips. Having said that, it is pretty remarkable that Apple has gotten themselves in a situation where a supplier has so much leverage over them. TSMC can set the prices and conditions and there isn't a lot anyone can do about it.